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O'Grady doping confession rocks cycling

Roger Vaughan

The cycling career that had everything now has an ugly postscript, with Stuart O'Grady's doping admission the latest blow to the credibility of his sport.

O'Grady has confessed he took the banned blood booster EPO in the lead-up to the 1998 Tour de France, prompting condemnation from the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and renewed debate about how cycling deals with its sordid history.

The 39-year-old retired from professional cycling on Tuesday and two days later he confessed after his name appeared in a French government anti-doping report.

Within hours, the AOC was calling on the 2004 Olympic gold medallist, Tour de France star and Paris-Roubaix winner to resign from its athletes' commission.

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"He is a six-time Olympian, he's a gold medallist, but really his career is tarnished as of today following what he has admitted," said AOC spokesman Mike Tancred.

But O'Grady, one of modern cycling's toughest competitors, also received strong backing from several quarters.

Perhaps the most unlikely support came from noted anti-doping consultant Nicki Vance.

"I would say cycling has let down Stuart O'Grady," Vance said in response to Fredericks' statement.

She said she was referring to the circumstances that prompted O'Grady to dope in 1998.

O'Grady effectively lied to Vance when she conducted a review of the Australian Orica-GreenEDGE team, following the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

Vance reported that no riders in the team had confessed to her that they doped during their careers.

She said O'Grady's reluctance to talk about his doping until confronted with evidence also showed again that cycling was yet to properly confront its doping history.

"Was I disappointed that Stuart didn't tell me that he was doping? I guess I can say sure, it would have been good to know," Vance told AAP.

"But I also acknowledge he would not necessarily would have known the outcome.

"All this does for me is confirm that the UCI (cycling's world governing body) has a responsibility to deal in a more over-arching way with the past.

"They continue to not show the leadership they should be (having) at this stage."

Vance also defended O'Grady against the inevitable suspicion his confession will prompt.

"I realise it's a difficult situation, to be believing someone when they say they only doped on the one occasion," she said.

"But to have his whole career judged on this one aberration, it's very sanctimonious by a lot of people.

"We really try to put it back in that perspective and try not to allow his cycling career to be now judged on this one aberration."

Also on Thursday:

* Orica-GreenEDGE general manager Shayne Bannan insisted that O'Grady's retirement immediately after the Tour de France ended last weekend was unrelated to the doping confession.

* O'Grady's confession again sparked debate about the need for some form of doping amnesty in cycling, or for the sport to have a truth and reconciliation commission. Vance said the drip-feeding of rider confessions helps no-one, but Tour Down Under race director Mike Turtur said he has grave reservations about whether riders would be honest with their statements.

* Bannan said it was too early to say whether O'Grady would have a future role at Orica-GreenEDGE. In normal circumstances, O'Grady would be an ideal director or talent development manager at a cycling team.

* O'Grady confession raises fresh questions about who rode clean and who doped during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Bannan is adamant the sport is now much cleaner, while Australian rider Pat Jonker, who also rode in the 1998 Tour, said on Thursday he never doped during his career.